Desire on the Menu

"Eat drink man woman," said the chef/father, giving Ang Lee's movie a title. Of course, he was not speaking to the director about movie titles -he was answering his daughter's question about the nature of life itself. The precise economy of his words and their pithy elegance may be unusual, but the concept is not. Almost every culture considers there to be a profound linkage, or sacred balance, between the two primal activities, eating and reproduction. To make sure we get the point, they often emphasize it with anthropophagic figures of speech. Consider such expressions as: "I could just eat you up" and "you look good enough to eat."